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Goodbye ‘Georgie’ Meat Pie

When I was 7 years old I went to New Zealand for 3 months to visit my relatives. It was here that I discovered a place called ‘Georgie Pie’. Now for most people in the UK they may not of heard of this. Basically it was a type of fast-food chain that only sold pies. And not just any pies, the most delicious mouth-watering pies I have ever tasted.

My favourite was the minced beef one and despite it being over 21 years since I had one, I can vouch that it still remains the best pie I have ever had.

So what do you do when 21 years has passed and you crave a food that you tried 11682 miles away? You do some Googling….you look to see if they do mail-order. Failing that, you search for an ex-employee that’s willing to share a secret recipe on their food blog.

Sadly, I wished I’d never begun the search. It turns out ‘Georgie Pie’ no longer exists. At some point Mcdonalds bought the rights to the pie and maybe somewhere in the U.S they sell them. One things for sure…I aint going to get that pie so I better start on plan B.

Plan B – Make your own God damn pie!

So it is never going to beat the romantic image I have in my memory bank of that first Georgie minced beef pie…but if it lights even the smallest of sparks I figured it was worth it. The result was good….the pie was excellent….the family ATE it all…..and it was all within budget. What’s more it took no time at all because I cheated and used the slow cooker..

The Goodbye Georgie Minced Beef Pie

Total Approx Price: £4.32

Serves 4, so £1.08 per person

Ingredients

1 large onion, chopped (10p)

3 cloves of garlic (9p)

2 tbsp. flour (2p)

1 beef stock cube (3p)

1 tbsp. tomato puree (2p)

1 flat tbsp. Worcester sauce (1p)

1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp dried parsley (2p)

4 tsp Aldi’s onion gravy (4p)

Salt & Pepper (1p)

Aldi 500g minced British Beef 5% fat (£3.09)

Aldi’s ready to roll puff pastry (89p)

Method

1) After you’ve dragged yourself outta bed and before you head off for the day get your slow cooker out and do this….

Put onions in…..Put mince in……mix……..

Put flour in…..mix……..Add 250ml of hot water to the stock cube and pour in…….mix………..

Add the puree, Worcester sauce, herbs and some salt and pepper.

If it doesn’t look like there is enough liquid then add some hot water…I added 200ml.

Bung the lid on and cook depending on your cooker….mine was low for 7.5 hours.

2) When you get home have a taste of the mix and if it needs it add some gravy..

I mixed 4 tsps. of onion gravy in a dash of water (enough to make a paste) and mixed it in with the mince.

Now pop the ‘proper’ oven on and when it’s heated cut your pastry into quarters….you could do fancy shapes if you want but I don’t like leftover pastry. It’s too delicious to leave leftover balls lying on the side.

Cook the pasty according to the pack instructions. When it’s ready, spoon the mince mixture onto a dish and rest a pastry (hat) on the top.

This tastes nice with mushy peas….even better if you swirl a tsp of mint sauce into the peas first!